Thursday, August 22, 2013

Reaching for Elysium: Why the movie could have been great but wasn’t

In the “Hero’s Journey” myth, Elysium (or the Elysium
Fields in Greek mythology) is the paradise that true heroes go to when they
die (think of Frodo in Lord of the Rings and
the hero in The Gladiator). To the ancient
Greeks, Elysium was a place at the ends of the earth where heroes, favored by
the gods for their altruism, went. It is a state or place of perfect happiness;
the equivalent of Heaven.

Elysium is also the name given to the Earth-orbiting space
station of Neill Blomkamp’s (District 9)
new science fiction political allegory of the same name. Elysium is where the
privileged live in luxury and perfect health (thanks to health-pods) — after they
abandoned Earth to the squalor they no doubt helped create. This is not made
clear enough for me and is one of the film’s major weaknesses, in my opinion (more
on that below).

Earth seen from Elysium

The year is 2154 in a Los Angeles that strangely resembles
the slum shanties of Johannesburg, South Africa (where Blomkamp filmed District 9). We soon learn that Earth struggles in the
mire of humanity’s waste in a state of general social strife. Abandoned by the
wealthy elite (who have moved to Elysium), the rest of an overpopulated
humanity lives in the squalor of abject poverty without food, healthcare, or
the motivation to live. I, for one, would have liked to know a little of how
humanity devolved so dramatically on a planetary scale.

A Different Hero’s
Journey

From the time he was a young orphan, Max Da Costa (Matt
Damon; Maxwell Perry Cotton) dreamed of going to Elysium, its impressive
phantom form visible in the daytime sky. He promised his childhood love Frey
(sympathetically played by Alice Braga and Valentina Giros) that he would take her there, to paradise.
His mentor, a kind mother-figure nun of the orphanage, gives him the hero’s
talisman (a locket with a picture of Earth inside), and prophesizes, “Es su
destino hacer algo maravilla cuando tu es hombre” ("It is your destiny to
do something great when you are a man"). She reminds him that when he gets
to Elysium, he will see the most beautiful thing: planet Earth. “You see how
beautiful it is,” she says to him as he gazes out at the ghost of Elysium in
the sky. Then, as she hands him the locket with Earth inside, she adds, “look
how beautiful we are from there. Never forget where you come from.” Seen from this perspective, the planet Earth
is a beautiful thing to behold.

Max is a reformed criminal who, like Blomkamp’s “workaday”
anti-hero in District 9 (Sharlto Copley),

is not very hero-like until the last
five minutes of the film, when he has his personal epiphany and decides to act
altruistically rather than self-servingly. This is a pattern that Blomkamp has
used before; the reluctant-hero (Wikus Van De Merwe) of District 9 was an unimpressive
man with many obvious blemishes. A rather unlikeable man until he makes his
heroic decision in the end. This is where Blomkamp’s heroes differ from most
action movie heroes, who generally start their journey from higher positions on
the evolutionary scale. Blomkamp’s heroes must journey farther to gain their
hero-status; they are perhaps more realistic portrayals of ordinary men who
finally shine under extra-ordinary circumstances. Men who we start out disliking—hating,
even—but find ourselves cheering for, perhaps even crying for. Max’s behavior
defines that true hero: rising from his need to save himself to his quest to
save humanity—at the cost of his own life. But, as with the ordinary man, it is
only when he connects a personal quest to save the daughter of his first love to
his global quest to save Earth that Max transforms into the altruistic mythic
hero he is destined to become. Everything came together at the film’s end, in a
montage of scenes that depict the locket of the planet Earth in his dying hand
(Earth is Home; save the planet), the demise of a police state, the savior of
his love’s daughter, and med-pods landing on Earth to dispense aid to the dying
masses.

A Story About the
Planet Earth

Ironically, it is to do with our beloved planet Earth that I
felt in Elysium the most discord in
plot/thematic story treatment and lack of resonance. Blomkamp begins with the
planet and he ends his film with the planet. The symbolism is clear: in the
stylish shots of Earth seen from Elysium (and vice versa); in the strategic
scenes of Max and the image in his precious locket of not his childhood love
Frey but of planet Earth; and his mentor’s advice to Max, delivered in one of
the most powerful scenes of the movie. Yet, Blomkamp fails to follow through to
give us that visceral connection. Why is the planet so important? How is Max
connected to it or anyone else, for that matter. What is Spider’s story (Wagner
Moura), a latter-day Che-Guevara, who fervently leads the proletarian rebellion
of Earth? Who, why and how did the planet come to be so destroyed? There is not
one ounce of suggestion, backstory or context. This is an important
consideration; because without it, instead of feeling total resolution and redemption
in the end, I felt a disconnect to those masses being helped and even some
distrust in their fate and direction. Instead of feeling true victory, I felt
ambivalence.

Called a “sci-fi socialist film” by P.J. Gladnick of Newsbusters.org, Elysium is clearly an
attempt at

examining and dramatizing the social segregation of humanity and
economic fascism: a dystopia that promises commentary on social and economic
issues in society today. However, I felt that its delivery was compromised by
Blomkamp’s choice to focus more on action tech at the expense of good backstory,
context and empathic character development. I’m not saying that it’s a bad
story. It is a very good story; it’s just that it could have been a great
story. The heart of the story—delivered through the main protagonist—lacks the
global connection it could have had. This is not, as some reviewers suggest,
due to any infirmity of the hero, his antagonists, or lack of symbolism (of
which there is much), but the lack of context, backstory and richness of
setting (I’m not talking about the visible setting, which was spectacular,
elegant and stylish). It comes back to how each character relates to “home”,
the planet, and to each other.

Matt Goldberg
of Collider.com says that, “Elysium‘s message about economic inequality is
couched in a finely-drawn sci-fi world, but the power of that message becomes
diminished when we cease to care about the messenger.” Detroit News Tom
Long added that, “Elysium is the
sort of big, noisy sci-fi film that seems to want to say something but opts
instead to concentrate on fight scenes involving gimmickry.” While I appreciated
the depth and breadth of Blomkamp’s references to pop culture from an
Armani-clad female Darth Vader to the Judeo-Christian references and symbolism,
it just didn’t hold its promise.

What began as a
promising exploration about an important social issue, devolved into a sequence
of ever-escalating gratuitous gore and violence—clearly aimed for a different
audience.

Nina Munteanu is an
ecologist and internationally published author of novels, short stories and
essays. She coaches writers and teaches writing at George Brown College and the
University of Toronto. For more about Nina’s coaching & workshops visit www.ninamunteanu.me. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for more about her writing.

4 comments:

Thank you for your candid opinion. Great article. Obviously Elysium totally missed the opportunities with short sighted vision. Sad that the potential for a humanitarian altruistic vision wasn't in the story boarding. Rather it ended up being the typical 'shoot up up' violent movie. I suppose it will attract a certain type...not for me in this case however. The potential for the future is lost IMO. Vanessa

Thank you for your review and opinion. Great article. Sad isn't it that it has left some feeling flat, with the missed potential of what could have been! The visionaries could have taken this to such a deeper level with a humanitarian/altruistic message. Certainly there will be those of us that will always demand more in our entertainment pleasure! However I will give this one a miss and stick with J.J. Abrams!

About Nina

I'm The Alien Next Door. I'm an ecologist and a published author of several novels, articles and reviews. I teach writing at George Brown College and UofT. I also coach writers. For more on writing (articles and advice) and more information about my coaching, visit me at Nina Munteanu Writing Coach. Visit Nina Munteanu Writer for more about my own writing. My new site The Meaning of Water is devoted to our precious water and brings my interest as an ecologist and limnologist to help understand the meaning and importance of this precious and mysterious element. Inside, you'll find articles that explore what water is and its meaning to this planet and to us as a species and life form.